Company Cannot Be Bought
by levisrictusias
Summary: The worst of problems can be solved with a bottle if company cannot be bought. Axel.Roxas


**A/N: **Hurrah! Another AkuRoku! Two in a month? This has got to be an all-time record for me. This is indeed a drunk!fic, but not a stupidly humourous one. I don't think everyone acts like a total moron when they're sloshed. Believe it or not, you can still hold conversations, even if you think odd thoughts and say a random thing every now and then. Anyway, this has just been begging to be written, so I fed my plot bunny with it. That and I would just love to see a completely hammered Axel. Takes place during the early Organization XIII days. Roxas has been around for probably a month or so.

**Company Cannot Be Bought**

'_The worst of problems can be solved with a bottle if company cannot be bought.'  
Anonymous_

To say that Axel was boring would have been to lie so outrageously that one would begin to question their sanity. The hair alone was enough to counter that hearsay. Not to mention that his personality in and of itself was already rather…explosive. Physically, he was already unique—tall, and lanky, yet possessing the capability of dealing a string of blows that sent even an experienced Organization member to the medi-center. And strangely, his eyes…his very strange eyes…an intensely electric sea green that one would have _thought_ would clash horribly with his shock of red hair but peculiarly complimented it.

Yes, to say that Axel was boring would most certainly have been a perverse fabrication.

However, to say that Axel was _bored _would have been the truth in every sense of the word.

And to be bored, Axel vowed as he walked about the castle halls, was a fate worse than death. Because being bored meant that he did stupid things like accidentally-on-purpose setting Larxene's hair on fire (thus causing her to adopt this ridiculous hairstyle), or convincing the lesser-Nobodies that Marluxia's sakura trees had plenty of water already, the poor things.

This was why the Superior constantly kept him busy—sending him on mission after mission after mission, allowing him time only for sleep and baths, knowing the Little Horrors Axel wrought on each member. Though Axel sometimes had the impression that the Superior allowed him to get away with some of the behaviour—he had, after all, conveniently been given only one opportunity to terrorize each member of the Organization.

Minus the Superior, of course.

_And_, Axel reminded himself, _the New Guy_. A sudden frown crossed his features—he knew next to nothing about the latest member of the Organization. Truth be told, Axel hadn't seen him since he and Saix found him on the Superior's orders last month, washed up on the darkened shores of Kingdom Hearts.

Roxas. He said his name was Roxas.

Axel was brought back to the present by a resounding _clunk!_ towards the end of the hall. His ears perked up at the sound, not knowing exactly which room it had come from.

The Organization quarters, Axel decided, were far too white.

_Can never tell which doors are opened or not, _he muttered inwardly, remembering all too well when he had run face first into a very white, very closed, very _solid_ door. Larxene had laughed herself stupid (something, he had told her crossly, that was not very difficult for her to do) for days, it seemed, about that particular incident. Which was, in retrospect, a factor that sparked his sudden interest in er…updating…her hairstyle.

Regardless, Axel was approaching the last door of the hallway. It was mercifully open, though only the slightest bit, a cleft of white carpeting peeking its way through the crack.

Another dull thud sounded and this time he allowed himself to indulge in his voyeurism. Leaning in a bit, Axel led a curious eye towards the object of his attention, which at the very moment happened to be…

Roxas…

Another clunk.

Axel was struck with the sudden notion to barge in but thought against it. Instead, he brought his arm up to knock, changed his mind, then changed his mind again, and was soon left with his arm hanging rather oddly in the middle of the air.

"I won't kill you, you know."

Axel smirked—good; the decision was made for him. "'Scuse me for not wanting to be rude, or anything," he said good-naturedly as he walked in.

You could always tell a person by their room. Vexen always scolded Demyx about how his quarters, "at the expense of sounding cliche, constantly look as if a cyclone has ripped through it—twice". Vexen's own room was the exact opposite—organized and orderly, to the point of disgust, really. Still, every now and then, his desk was littered with papers and documents and various simmering test tubes.

Roxas's was completely bare save for the standard bed-nightstand-lamp combination. It looked, very plainly speaking…plain.

"I see you've made yourself at home," Axel said pointedly.

He smiled. "Don't I know it."

Axel returned the smile and took it as an invitation to walk towards where the newest member was seated against his bed. "Whatcha doin'? Heard you clunking around from all the way on the other end of the hallway."

For a brief moment, Axel thought he saw a flash of panic flit through those vibrantly blue eyes but it had gone so fast that he concluded he had imagined it. Roxas didn't answer, but reached behind and under his bed for something.

"Ah, a smuggler," Axel teased. "Now, what would you be hiding that's so…"

His voice trailed off as the blond pulled out a bottle of liquor that had to at _least_ be a foot long. A quarter of a half was gone.

Roxas offered him a slightly sheepish glance. "I don't think I'll really get used to the idea of not being whole, y'know? Sometimes it helps to drink—gives the impression that you might be all there."

Axel let out a bark of laughter. "Yeah, and the feeling grows when you're drink 'til you're shit-faced and throwing it all back up, too." He shook his head, a smirk gracing his features. "So, you're not just a goody two shoes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Roxas said indignantly.

"You know we're not supposed to let ourselves get into that kind of stuff—bad for the team, man."

"Since when does the Organization take an ethical stand on the consumption of alcohol?"

"Touché," Axel agreed. "And here I was, thinking that you were the typical shy kid. Thought you'd be friends with Demyx, or something."

"Demyx isn't a shy kid, he's just a moron."

"Wahey! You're full of sparkling compliments today, aren't you, Roxas?"

A corner of his mouth lifted. "It's Axel…isn't it?"

"Yeah…" he replied, startled by the sudden shift in conversation.

"I never thanked you for, y'know…"

"Oh, yeah…it's all good." Axel knew that he spoke of his finding him—he wouldn't have wanted to stay trapped naked and face down on a black beach without any recollection of getting there alone.

A large, amber-coloured bottle suddenly blocked his vision. He gave Roxas a questioning search, his gaze moving between him and the bottle. "Sit down and have some," Roxas offered. "It's the least I can do."

Axel eyed both Roxas and the bottle, an unreadable look crossing his gaze. "Don't mind if I do," he said finally and slid down next to him, taking the bottle and a hearty swig. "Shit," Axel murmured appreciatively as he wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. "Where'd you get this?"

"Around," Roxas replied with a nonchalant shrug as the bottle was passed onto him.

Silence reigned.

"Don't you guys get sick of this crappy weather?" Roxas suddenly said conversationally, nodding over to the solitary window placed directly above the nightstand. It betrayed the world's typical, dark, climate—there was no daytime in The World That Never Was.

"Nah. The white more than makes up for it," Axel replied easily, pointing at the strikingly bright walls.

Roxas laughed but did not say anything else.

"Man of few words, are ya?" Axel teased.

The blond raised an eyebrow. "What's there to say? We're sitting in a room and drinking."

"Well, I don't really know you that well," Axel pointed out, as if this answered everything.

His other eyebrow rose to join the other as he took an additional draft.

"Alrighty then, let's play a game," Axel proposed with a mischievous grin.

"Aren't we a little old to be playing games?"

"Aren't you a little young to be drinking?"

"…"

Axel chuckled under his breath as he accepted the bottle. "That's what I thought," he said and drank deeply.

Roxas rolled his eyes and pried the bottle away from Axel and mimicked his actions. "All right, what kind of game are we playing?"

"Two truths—" Axel snatched the glass from Roxas to drink from it once again, "—and a lie."

The blond shot him a critical eye as he snatched back the bottle a little jerkily than he intended to. "I know next to _nothing_ about myself, Axel."

"Okay, then we'll make it two lies and a truth."

"Axel…"

He snickered. "Hey, either way, we can still get wasted."

"True," he admitted.

"You need to relax," Axel told him pointedly. "That's why you're going first."

He choked a bit on his drink. "What? I don't even know how to play."

"Then let's go over the rules," he said slowly and Roxas shot him an annoyed glare. Axel continued as if he hadn't noticed. "The person with the bottle tells two truths and a lie, or, in this case, two lies and a truth—"

"Well, I figure that much—"

"Aaaanyway, the other player—that's me," he pointed to himself, "—has to guess which one is the truth and which one is the lie. Every time you get one wrong, you drink. _But_, if you guess right for all of them, then you down as much as you can in three swallows."

"That's it?"

"That's it, those are the rules. Got 'em memorized?"

Roxas nodded. "Sure."

"Good, now you're up," he said as he took the bottle from his grip.

"Okay…uh…I actually think that Demyx is okay—"

"Psh…that's already a lie," Axel cut him off.

Roxas gave him an irritated stare. "Stop interrupting."

Axel raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry. Keep going. You're doing alright."

"Thanks for the approval," he said before continuing, "I'd rather eat a mango than floss my teeth, and…uh, I drink alone."

"You're kidding, right? That's it?"

He shrugged. "Hope you weren't expecting anything interesting."

"Not interesting, _juicy_," Axel corrected with a wink.

"Are we playing, or not?"

"Alright, aright. Um…we've already established that you're lying about thinking that Demyx is okay…"

Roxas snorted and crossed his arms in response.

"And I think you'd rather eat a mango than floss your teeth," Axel told him confidently.

"Wrong."

"What?"

"Drink twice," he said with a smirk.

Axel returned the grin and did as was requested. "Now this is interesting. The drinking alone part couldn't have been a truth—you're drinking with me now, aren't you?" he pointed out.

"Yeah," Roxas agreed, "but generally speaking, I drink alone."

"That was a cheap trick," he accused, a glare on his face.

"It worked," he replied pointedly and grabbed the bottle from the redhead.

"All right then, wise guy," he began, "I hate salad, one of my hips is higher than the other…um…I ran around naked around the castle."

Roxas frowned. "All of those seem plausible. Even the running around the castle naked part."

"Pity you weren't around to see it," Axel mentioned mysteriously.

Roxas paused. "You're bluffing…" he accused.

"Am I?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I say that you _didn't_ run around the castle naked."

"Ooh, good guesser," Axel praised with a wink.

"And I think…your hips look pretty even to me…"

Axel's smile widened, "are you staring?"

"No!" he dismissed, but Axel noticed a slight tinge to of pink colour his cheeks. Then again, Roxas had started drinking before they had begun playing. "I just…you like salad!"

Axel clapped twice. "Wow, you're good. Now, down it," he smirked.

Roxas said nothing but took three long swigs. When Axel saw his face once again, he noticed a slightly more unfocused gaze.

"Say, how exactly do we figure out who wins this?" he asked as he handed him the glass once again.

The corner of Axel's lip twitched upward. "When you pass out…"

Several drinks and downs later, Axel was feeling good about the whole world in general, noticing things that he had never noticed before. Like how Roxas's nose would twitch every time he lied instead of blinking a lot like Vexen told him people that lied did. It was really quite interesting. Axel noticed that Roxas also rather liked rubbing his eyes when he was frustrated. It was very endearing.

He smiled lazily. Roxas really did have nice eyes. And rather soft hair. He briefly wondered what conditioner he used. Then he wondered whether he used conditioner at all. Did Roxas take baths or showers?

"Stop…staring at me…jerk," Roxas said articulately before laughing a bit.

Axel continued his lethargic grin. "You should smile more often. You always look so serious ya know? What kind of conditioner do you use?"

"Um…seventy-five."

"That's a number."

"No shit, dumbass, I just didn't know what to say."

Both glared blearily at each other before bursting into a fit of laughter.

"Whatever man, s'your turn again," Axel told him jerked the bottle away from him with a shaking hand, sloshing a bit of its contents on the ground. Immediately, the stain quivered and then shrunk until it had vanished completely.

A beat.

"Self-cleaning carpeting is so fucking weird."

"Agreed," Axel accorded. "Wait, does that count as a lie?"

"Do _you_ count as a lie?"

"It's your _turn_."

Roxas laughed again and Axel found himself wishing that he would do so again. Laughing was a good thing. Laughing was what made the world go round. Laughing was what was behind the oddity of self-cleaning carpet. Or…something.

"Okay…" Roxas began once again and this time his smile did not leave his face, for which Axel was quite happy about, "I once pulled a chunk of Lexaeus's leg hair off while he slept because he made fun of my toothbrush…ummmmmmmmm…I like to touch my teeth because they're bone…and I like touching bone…without being injured…or jacking off…aaaand…I think, therefore I am…sometimes."

Axel stared at him blankly for what felt like an eternity (an eternity in which he had time to map out a very gratuitous and sexual act which he would certainly never commit, no siree bob) before fitting a thatch of snickers. "Those were all lies, you moron," he accused.

"Damn, you're really good at this…" Roxas breathed and Axel felt his stomach twist in a not-so-uncomfortable way as he downed his drink. They were starting to run out of alcohol, not to mention things to say. In the period of a good hour, Axel felt as if he had bore his soul to someone who had summarized his life story in less than ten minutes.

"Anyway," Roxas's voice brought his mind back to the land of the living, "now you're going," he said and pried the bottle away from Axel's grip.

He pouted a bit but went on with the game—it was increasingly difficult to think when you had several downs of hard liquor singing in your blood-not-blood (did Nobodies even _have_ blood?). "All right…I like to pull the wings off of butterflies and then yell at them 'hah! Now you're back to where you started from!'"

Roxas snickered and Axel felt immediately encouraged to make him smile again.

"I sit in an eight by ten closet every evening…"

He earned another hearty laugh from him.

"I had sex with Larxene one time."

That statement, of course, caused the blond to nearly die from laughing and Axel would have joined in had he not conveniently remembered something rather important.

"Holy…wow…well I know that last one isn't true—your answers get more and more far-fe…far-feshed…far…weird…the more you drink," he laughed once again and Axel joined him in his laughter this time, albeit a bit more hesitantly.

"Well, _I_ thought it was funny," he said and took a swallow from the bottle (missing the mouth of it twice before doing so).

The thing about playing two truths (lies) and a lie (truth) when you are sloshed beyond all reason is that you forget that you have to have at least one lie (truth). To put it quite simply, Axel _forgot_ that rules of the game.

"Wait…" Roxas figured once he saw that his companion's nervous laughter had died down. "You didn't…you didn't _actually_…"

"Kinda."

Roxas's features suddenly grew dark. "What? Are you kidding me? Larxene?"

He shrugged lopsidedly. "Yeah…" he admitted hesitantly.

Silence reigned. "I…why? When?" he demanded a little harshly than he intended to, Axel was sure, because that would give the ludicrous impression that he was possibly jealous.

"Uh…it was a year ago…I think we were on something," he added thoughtfully, "I don't remember anything from that night, actually. All I do remember's that I woke up the next morning with two tattoos on my face and Larxene and I naked in her bed."

"So then, technically, you could have not done anything…right…"

Axel highly doubted it. "Sure."

Roxas said nothing. Axel gently took the bottle from his hands (smothering his laughter at his sudden scandalized expression) and offered a smile. "Your turn…"

He folded his hands and stared at him for a moment before saying, "I'm running out of things to say, Axel."

"You've got to be kidding! Just make stuff up!"

"Well, maybe I don't like making stuff up all the time," Roxas countered indignantly (in a rather lofty tone, Axel noted, that he would probably not have been caught dead using had he been sober). "And besides," and here he seemed to hesitate a little, "I kind of like knowing us…like…the real us…like when we can guess our truths…and talk about them…"

Axel had figured by now that he was beginning to garner a bit of a crush on the boy especially with the slight tinge of tickle-me-pink across the bridge of his nose (because Roxas did not colour on his cheeks, because that was, simply put, not the way Roxas was) but he also knew even in his hazed stupor that once the alcoholic bliss wore off, the spontaneous affections would wear off with it; it was how it had been with Larxene and it was how it would be with Roxas.

And yet, without thinking, he replied, "I like getting to know you, too."

And Roxas (without thinking, because he most certainly wouldn't have effected such a bizarre action ascetically, absolutely not, nope) allowed his head to drop on his shoulder with an almost inaudible thud.

After a considerable amount of silence, Roxas poked him in the ribs. "_Axel_."

"Hmm…?" he replied intelligently; things were beginning to grow rather fuzzy about the edges of his vision.

"I _said_—" (but he wasn't speaking before, was he…?) "—are we still playing?"

He suddenly noticed how Roxas had been slurring for the last twenty minutes of the game. It was quite adorable. Axel placed a note in the back of his mind that would be forgotten the next morning that he should get Roxas wasted more often. "Sure…sure we're playing…go…go 'head, Blondie."

Roxas wrinkled his nose in a manner that both was delightful and said he did not like being called "Blondie", but went on. "Okay…um…I…want to have a heart attack…just so I can feel it…"

Axel suddenly felt as if he swallowed a block of ice whole. He had a rather large feeling that this was the "truth" part of the game…if only the room would stop spinning.

"It's pretty stupid, I know," Roxas continued and Axel postulated that he may or may not have been playing anymore, "but then I guess it's part of that whole not-having-a-heart-thing."

Axel laughed bitterly from his place on the other boy's head. "Makes ya wonder why the Heartless get a kickass name while we get stuck with this 'Nobody' shit," he agreed.

He felt him nod under him and his chin went up and down. He wished he would stop moving. The atmosphere around him was doing plenty of that, thankyouverymuch.

"I guess," Roxas began and Axel noted, quite irritated, that the edges of his sight were growing tenebrous, "I guess maybe…if I _had_ a heart attack…it would make me feel like…" he broke off to stare determinedly at an invisible stain on the "fucking weird" self-cleaning carpeting.

Axel desperately wanted him to go on, because Lord knew the both of them were swaying seated on the spot. Roxas scratched at his wrist, a sliver of flesh from the sleeve of his robes to the ends of his gloves, and Axel knew that it simply _had_ to be the liquor that made a single glance at such an insignificant part of the body so lovely and oddly…erotic…

He swallowed, hard, and prompted, "Makes you feel like…what?"

The blond gave him another one of his bleary-eyed expressions. "It makes me feel like maybe I'd be more than just…half a person."

They were too close, he noticed, far too close. Axel could feel the breath on his cheek, could count every eyelash lining his incurably blue eyes.

"You know what…?"

A pause.

"What…?"

"You're more than half a person to me…"

They never did make it to the next two lies…or, if they did, Axel certainly didn't remember it as the room mercifully stopped its incessant spinning and swallowed him whole.

The first thing that Axel noticed when he came to his senses once again was that he had the rather remarkable (albeit painful) sensation that an elephant had been shoved into his ear, through his head, and out the other.

The next was that he was very warm and very comfortable, though oddly so, because every now and then, he felt his center of gravity shift.

Roxas. He had fallen asleep on Roxas, who, with each breath, altered his height level. Axel, not caring, snuggled closer to the warmth and swore under his breath. There was no way in hell he was moving.

Then again, this was before he remembered that the Superior had ordered him to oversee Castle Oblivi-whatsit's construction today.

_Damn it._

He opened his eyes and noticed that the lights had gone off automatically during their slumber. He looked out the window and noticed that it was still dark outside.

_Well, no shit. It's The World That Never-Fucking-Was._

He winced; even in his head it sounded loud.

Axel felt Roxas moved under him a bit and for a second his non-existent heart stopped; would he push him off? Roxas stirred; Axel felt his eyelashes brushing onto his cheeks as he blinked and moaned softly. Axel moved off him slowly, and realized that Roxas was still lain across his legs.

"Goddamn…" he mumbled intelligently and picked himself up gingerly from Axel's lap; Axel frowned at the sudden cold.

"Got the feeling of _feeling_ like you wanted?" Axel snorted as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Roxas groaned and let his head fall back to rest against the side of his bed. "This isn't what I meant…"

He smirked. "'Course not."

"I just wanted to forget I didn't have a heart for a while."

"Didn't work?"

He felt Roxas shake his head beside him. "No, it did."

"Hey, that's the joy of alco—"

"But…not because of the drinking."

Axel was silent. He could feel the blood (not-blood) singing in his veins and frowned. Damn it, it wasn't supposed to be this way, was it? Weren't the affections supposed to release their leeching grip on you once you sobered? This was certainly not the Way Things Worked. And this was certainly not How They Worked when he had had his tryst with Larxene. There were, he remembered, no awkward feelings—hell, there were no feelings at all. And here he was, sharing a moment with someone he had known for two hours at most (not counting the sleeping bit of course) and not wanting it to end.

"Roxas, I—"

The lights suddenly switched on and both he and Roxas were assaulted by a searingly blinding light made twice as so as it bounced off of the obnoxiously white walls.

"Aargh! Mother _f_—"

"Roxas—hey, what are _you_ doing here?"

It was, of course, Demyx. Because, as a general rule, it was Demyx's job to burst in at perfectly inopportune moments. At least, that's what Axel was thinking heatedly (no pun intended) when he saw him standing at the door, hand on the light switch, questioning gaze on him.

"Wouldn't you like to know," he answered in Trademark Mysterious Axel fashion. "What do you want?"

Demyx startled a bit, looking as if he, for a moment, had forgotten why he was there, which, quite simply, would have caused Axel to unleash all hell (quite literally) on his sitar-playing behind.

"Oookay," he remarked keenly, "Roxas, the Superior wants to see you."

He nodded mutely and Axel noted a note of disdain in Demyx's voice. Demyx was the unspoken messenger boy and there was not one moment that Axel could remember since Roxas joined the Organization that he stopped bitching about how he never got to go on any important assignments and how it wasn't fair that Roxas was a member for only a month and he was already on proper speaking terms with Xemnas.

Axel mentally snorted. He bet that as soon as he finally received a suitable mission, he'd screw it up and then make up some asinine excuse like "you're sending the wrong guy" or something.

"Oh, and Axel, since you're here," Demyx continued, "Larxene and Marluxia are looking for you. Said if you don't come help them with the assignment, Larxene will—" he paused to think "—'force you into a closet and cut off an appendage each time you complain'."

Axel rolled his eyes. Larxene—typical malicious bitch, like always.

He was brought back to attention by a sudden gasp and both he and Roxas looked up to see Demyx wearing an expression of disbelief.

"Dude—did you guys _break _into the Superior's _liquor cabinet_?"

Axel furrowed his brow as he trailed Demyx's gaze to the very large, very _empty_ bottle on the ground and inwardly cursed. He exchanged 'why-didn't-you-tell-me-you-stole-this-huge-bottle-of-liquor-from-the-freaking-_Superior_-of-all-people?' glances with Roxas who, in turn, supplied him with a 'like-I-was-going-to-tell-_you_' shrug.

_You dumbass,_ he chastised mentally though there was certainly no turning back now. Demyx would have Roxas in trouble so deep that he would be up to his armpits in it.

_Tattle tale_, Axel thought childishly. True, the Organization was not to dabble in such behaviour, but even the Superior could not be denied the tastes of fine alcohol—or at least his Other couldn't. He had to think fast…

"_I_ did," he replied with a nonchalant shrug. "What's it to ya?"

"_You _did? You know we're not supposed to go through—"

Axel snorted. "Since when do I follow the rules?" he remarked, which was the half-truth.

Demyx fumbled for a reply. "If he finds out…"

"But he won't, will he…_friend_?"

He frowned, and Axel knew victory was his. Demyx wouldn't tell on Axel whereas he'd have been more likely to do so with Roxas.

"One of these days, you're going to get me kicked out," he responded with a pout. "Just be glad you didn't make a mess—self-cleaning carpeting is so fucking weird, though, isn't it?"

And without so much as a good-bye, he left, his footsteps echoing in the far-too-white corridor outside Roxas's room.

Silence reigned.

"Thanks."

Axel's ear twitched—he had forgotten that the blond was still there. "Yeah, no problem. Thanks for the company," he added with a smirk and smiled inwardly when he saw a light blush colour the bridge of the other's nose.

"You're welcome."

And Axel realized as he saw that little sliver of skin of Roxas's wrist that even though a bottle could solve the worst of problems if company could not be bought, more often than not, it was better to have both.

**Fin.**

**A/N: **Yes, I know, OOC-ness but the way I based Axel was the way I saw him when he was interacting with Roxas in the infamous flashback ("I would miss you"). We see a much softer Axel and so I brought that out a bit especially because he had his guard down. I did not, however, neglect asshole!Axel, as you can see from the beginning and end bits. Then again, this was written on a sort of spur-of-the-moment fanfic binge, so I actually expect flames and critiques, which I shall accept humbly, thankyouverymuch. Either way, comment, if you please! I always reply.


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